Churinga Cafe Restaurant

1381 Mt Dandenong Tourist Rd, 3767Date visited: 13th May 2012The thing I love about the Dandenong Ranges is that there is never any shortage of beautiful parks and places to have Devonshire tea. Today was no exception - we stopped by the Churinga Cafe today after a visit to the William Ricketts Sanctuary. It was freezing cold (not to mention it had hailed on us!) so a warm beverage and some Devy tea sounded like the way to go.

Churinga claims to have the best Devonshire teas in the Dandenongs. Whether self-proclaimed or not, we just had to try it =D

Entrance to Churinga cafe

Afternoon tea menu

Cute table setting

We decided to have coffee, tea and order four different things and try them all between us. Two ladies sitting beside us (who were raving to each other about the scones they had) saw us ordering almost the whole tea menu and asked us with much interest what we thought of our other dishes. LOL.

Latte

English breakfast tea

AS had the Devy tea. It consisted of two scones, jam and cream. The homemade scones were lovely - covered in powdered sugar, they were very soft, light and fluffy. As good as they were, I couldn't stop thinking about Wickedly Delicious' sticky date scones! And you got two types of jams, butter and a larger amount of each for $4 more there too.

Devonshire tea

Mum had the pancakes. They were really delicious - very rich and buttery, slightly salty and not a hint of that flour-taste that I absolutely cannot stand in a pancake. It went very well with the sweetness of the maple syrup. I thought they could have been more generous with the barely-one-scoop of ice cream for $9.90.

Pancakes with maple syrup & ice cream

We unanimously agreed that the best dish of the afternoon was MerlinFan's sticky date pudding with toffee cream sauce. The pudding was so soft, moist and rich, and the toffee sauce was divine. Very nicely done.

Sticky date pudding

I had the Belgian waffles with berries, chocolate ganache and cream. And no, in case you were wondering, they did not use a huge plate, these were really the tiniest Belgian waffles I've ever been served! I think both pieces would make up a single waffle at Theobroma or Max Brenner. The Mini Me waffles were really crispy but didn't particularly wow me. The chocolate ganache could have been a bit more chocolatey.

Belgian waffles

Of note, a waitress asked how things were going, and AS told her "Everything is good, except the waffles could use to be bigger." LOL. @_@ The waitress answered with a grin, "everything's always better when there's more, isn't it."